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Grumpy Old Blogger

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Everything posted by Grumpy Old Blogger

  1. So....this is where we are at. A lad with three whole games under his belt in his caeeer. Bound to fire us back into the Premier League. Or, is the plan to cut the budget to fit the Championship for a few seasons? Certainly feels that way.
  2. [quote user="pliff"]The board has been a joke for years, you cannot tell me there has not been interest from potential buyers, the cook just does not want to let go, while she can put her red wine through the books she is happy for us to be mediocre. They take your money then take the p i s s, charge the earth for refreshments. I have been a season ticket holder for years and will continue to be, and i go to support my team not the people running the club.[/quote] We are told that The Smiths have £2m invested in the club. Well, if I had £2m and could use it to take full control of a club that is now debt free and worth, what, £60m? Owns the ground, Colney etc. Sounds like a bargain. And where doe the £60m go? To the people who paid £2m for the shares. Not a bad investment, eh!
  3. Technology has never been Archant''s strong suite! From their online newspaper to the jobs Board to the WhatsApp feed. Nothing quite works as it should and always seems ''clunky'' even when it does.
  4. We''ve probably both made the rookie error of assuming Archant have introduced some technology that works! Interestingly I can;t see it advertised anywhere now.
  5. Am I doing something wrong or are others having problems getting the WhatsApp link, advertised by Archant last week, to work? Signed up correctly. Two ticks on the receipt. then......nothing. no news, no scores, no transfer news. Hang on. Wait a minutes. there is no news, we drew 0-0 and there''s no sign of any new striker. Maybe it is working properly.
  6. Inexperience? Certainly. Arrogance? Probably. Alex Neil seems to be composing his obituary every time he opens his mouth these days. We used to have a manager who had the same internal belief – that it was all about him. He deflected that by always insisting that it was all about the players. He had that same driven ambition that AN displays. He was just able to keep a lid on it until his final exit to Villa. So, inexperience has made AN tell everyone that it’s not HIS fault the players aren’t carrying out his perfectly good instructions. If they were we would be picking up points every week. After all he has only ever been promoted in in his career, hasn’t he…. ……and there is the arrogance. He has actually started to believe all the hype around him. He believes he is infallible. This, let’s not forget, is a manger who has been doing it for 2 ½ years and half of that time in a league not much better that the Conference. Sadly, it’s not possible to sit him down now and tell him a few facts of life. It’s too late. In hindsight, he may well come to see one day that he would have become a far better manager if we had failed to get promoted last year and he had had at least another season at Championship level.
  7. The "poor dears" are the supporters who deserved better than a couple of loans when they can see that the team is weak in important areas. They care. Nothing wrong with caring - its what we do.
  8. ....like your logic but I suspect it might be a wee bit over the shiny head!
  9. Have I missed the obligatory "I''m happy with my squad....we''ll go with what we have.." stuff from the manager? Maybe he isn''t happy. Nothing from the CEO telling us how difficult it is to get players in for the budget we have. Nothing from the bloke from Burnley asking, "Transfer window....what transfer window?" Maybe they all realise there is nothing much they can add to the debate. Having hardly missed a home game since 1960 I have seen loads of ups and downs, but the "ups" are worth it. Sadly, the euphoria of Wembley was washed away so quickly by the lack of activity on Tuesday. Perhaps our manager needs to realise that his publicity is just that - publicity. Not necessarily to be believed by him. He needs to understand he IS inexperienced at this level and when 20,000+ loyal supporters tell him that he needs a central defender or two and that Russell Martin won''t survive at this level - maybe, taken together, they have more experience of The Premier League than he does.
  10. How very dare you suggest that everything in the garden is anything but rosy! We have an excellent board backing a hugely successful and experienced manager. Unlike all the other clubs in The Premier League we are going survive and still live within our very tight budget to ensure that there is plenty of money in the bank. We have a perfectly good side packed with Premier League experience led by a manager who walks on water for fun. We will definitely stay up with little or no problem by following the Southampton and Swansea models (used to be Charlton a few seasons ago – remember them!). You really should avoid posting on here unless you are prepared to commit unconditional loyalty to everything the club does (or doesn’t do) and be happy to clap at every opportunity. And just remember if we do go down it will be the fault of people who were less than 100% behind the team irrespective of performance or results.
  11. Thanks for your measured response Yankee. I too enjoyed the Palace game. I found myself sitting in the sunshine after 30 minutes saying to myself "I don''t care if this finishes 0-0 its a good game." but it doesn''t alter my sentiments and would have written the same piece on Friday Night as all the points remain the same and McNally was basking in his second sponsorship deal of the week. Poor old AN was still out of his depth in the transfer market and we still had the bloke Burnley didn''t want asking what he should do to help out. Wolfie was still a thorn in Delia''s side and we were still being "rumoured" with some pretty indifferent strikers. I''ll still be there every week. I''ll still be supporting the team. I''ll still kick the cat when we lose and I''m listening on Radio Spud........and I''ll still think that the supporters deserve better.
  12. So reminiscent of the responses two years ago when anyone dared to question the club''s ambition......keep your fingers in your ears and keep repeating "La-la-la-la - I can''t hear you"
  13. It seems our Board has convinced itself that we can''t compete financially at this level and they are still devastated by having to take a hit on Wolfie (a chance would be a fine thing!). Then we have a Chief Exec concentrating more on sponsorship deals than building the team to a point where we can compete. Add a Recruitment Manager who arrives far too late and from a club who, by all accounts, were glad to see the back of him. Now drop in a Manager who has never had to play the transfer market before in his short time in Scotland and who has little or no idea who might be available and if they are suitable. In all a recipe for disaster when we are left with a team who were relegated last time they were in the Premier League, who have had virtually no improvements made except Brady for Olsson (if that is an improvement). We seem to be drifting around players who are available considering low bids and wages and hoping for a break. Paul Lambert was far from perfect as he proved at Villa but he did have one thing right. Get your business done early and get them bedded in before the season starts. This needs someone to get a grip and that someone should be the Chief Executive Officer. Somehow there seems to be an air of resignation around that we are not going to get anyone in of consequence and will loose some of those we already have. Neil Doncaster once said we had "budgeted for relegation" - this feels very much like the same. No real money spent, go down with parachute payments and we just might have a bigger bank balance in three years time than if we had tried a bit harder to recruit quality and stay up.
  14. Mr McNally has asked that you all be made aware that he is a bit tied up with arranging new sponsorship deals such as the two last week. Such deal can only be pulled off while we are in The Premier League so must be completed while it looks like we have a chance of being there next season too. He craves your indulgence but promises that as soon as he has lined up as much money as possible to go into the coffers he will get round to looking at the Striker and Central Defender situation although he wants you all to understand that sponsorship deals are far more important and the money raised with them is not to be frittered away on Premier League style wage demands. Hopefully that will put an end to this pointless debate.
  15. Tim has described the decision to take the Aston Villa job as a "No-brainer".... .....just as well matey. You should do well there.
  16. [quote user="ref89"]Michael Bailey reckons he has been interviewed.[/quote] Why would they interview Michael Bailey. He has marginally less experience than dear old Neil.
  17. Tin hat out.... Friends and acquaintances whose knowledge of football extends to occasionally watching Match of the Day, but who believe that entitles them to have an opinion, are amazed when I say I’m looking forward to next season more than if we’d stayed in The Premiership. I have been at Carrow Road through thick and very thin (this season) so I think I have the right of reply… “Surely you love seeing all those top teams and players?” – Not when they are dicking my team I don’t. “Surely all that Premiership money is good?” – Good for who? I don’t see any of it. The club has cleared its debts and can afford a better wine in the boardroom – Woopedy-woo. Also, the price of that Premiership money is never knowing when you are playing. Football is for a cold Saturday afternoon at 3:00pm. Not 12:30 on a Sunday, or a Monday night. “Surely you enjoy being on Match of the Day?” – What, and be patronised when we occasionally win and condemned as irrelevant the rest of the time. We are simply there, like 2/3rds of the league as “goal difference” for the “big boys” and to make them look good. “Surely you love the glamour of The Premiership?” – If we had a dubious Middle Eastern or Russian owner prepared to pamper their ego by throwing billions at a plaything – but we are not, and even if we were, would we really sleep easy thinking that we had someone connected to the club who had bought our way into the top ten but who could walk away at any minute. “Surely you love seeing all them foreign stars?” – See the first answer. Also, why would I want to watch foreign players kissing badges and representing cities that they couldn’t point to on a map before the cheque book came out. Ok, The Championship can be a bit that way, but only a bit. “Surely you love competing at the top level” – I’d love us to be competing at the top level, but we aren’t and never will be. Paul Lambert had it right when he said that most Premiership teams want to be drawn against a respectable team in the first round of any cup competition and go out to concentrate on getting just enough points to be 17th. There end all ambition. And for what, so the club can gather in even more money to buy more foreign "stars" (van Wolfswinkel!) to start the next season with the same goal. What was it David McNally said of Chris Hughton’s target – “Keep us out of the bottom three” So, I for one, am looking forward to next season. We will be as competitive as any other side. What we achieve at the end of the season will largely be about our own efforts and performances against those around us, not how deep our owners pockets are or how quickly we can get dumped out of the cup. Call it “Little Ol’ Norwich” syndrome. Shame we can’t win The Championship and then say, “Tell you what, let someone else go up and we’ll just have the money and stay here”. That way the board are happy and so are old f4arts like me!
  18. No…. not one of the recent disgraceful performances but the one that saw us relegated on the back of a 6-0 thumping. One of the most obvious things from that game was that some players had clearly been in discussion with their agents and decided that they were not going to The Championship. A similar thing happened when we went to League One (Lee Croft, that guy Bell and the skinny midfielder who played for Northern Ireland). My point is there could be a very real chance that, if the drop starts to look increasingly inevitable, the same thing will happen again with agents setting up moves and whispering in players ears with the result that, just like at Fulham, there will be players out there over the last few games rather hoping we don’t stay up as they have a ticket out of here anyway. I can think of quite a few senior guys who would want to be waving us farewell as we head for the exit and this, more than anything can eventually determine our fate.
  19. ....He''s "put a shift in"....   For £20k+ a week I should think so too!
  20. Cough cough, shuffle shuffle, tuneless whistling, downcast eyes of the Canary Failthful as our Player of the Season proves for the second time in a few months that he fancies himself as a "Gangsta". Sad, to say there will be loads of people willing to put this down to the folly of youth. In reality its an overpaid bloke with too much time on his hands and a tenuous grip on reality who thinks he can get away with anything and that the world (outside Sun readers) has the slightest interest in what he gets up to off the football field. What would our reaction it was Titus Bramble (with a similar sized brain and ego) who was the centre of attention?
  21. …bear with me here. We had four games left and needed three more points. Stoke (A) – OK, they have been on a bad run but go there and try to defend for a 0-0 and they will always be likely to nick one. They did. Villa (H) – Lambert knows how to win matches. With each game his youngsters get more experience and he has already proved that he is a better tactician than Hughton and his anonymous deputies will ever be. Inevitable, although we might have got a draw. Man City (A) – Even given that most of their guys will be mentally “on the beach” they will still have enough to beat a City team including players who have already had agents whispering in their ears promising that they will remain in The Premiership. Remember Fulham anyone? Which leaves WBA (H) – If Wigan can get three against them it suggests they may also be “on the beach”. They have over performed all season and this one always represented our best chance. One can argue that, if this had been the first of the four games we would have been home and hosed. So, get the three points against WBA, wave goodbye to Hughton and his not very Merry Men and start again. He shot himself in both feet yesterday after the game when he fumbled his way to saying, “When you get back on terms the important thing is not to lose”. The easiest way not to lose Chris is to win. Fail to learn the lessons and net season will be complete nightmare.
  22. Reports in the Daily Record suggest that he has won the National Lottery and has offered the whole lot to Delia........   .........provided he gets to choose the manager! Can''t think who he''ll choose.
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